It's time to...

Stop, Pray, Work, Play & Love

So much of our stress and anxiety derives from our pollution of Time. God has given us the gift of time, and called it holy, yet we often experience time as a curse. Recapture time as a gift and discover how to experience the joy of the present moment.

Monastic Wisdom

for everyday

This six-week journey of reflection on time is now available as an anytime series for individuals and groups. Subscribe to receive the series' video meditations from the SSJE Brothers directly in your inbox, or scroll down and view the videos below. This video offering is accompanied by a helpful workbook, as well as facilitation guidance for small groups from the Center for the Ministry of Teaching at Virginia Theological Seminary.

To receive this offering in your inbox, as a daily email for six weeks, add the date you would like to begin. (We recommend that you start on a Sunday to maintain the weekly sequence). If you are going to follow this series as a group, we suggest that everyone coordinate the same start date to receive the videos in sync.

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Meeting Jesus in the Gospel of John
5 Marks of Love
Growing a Rule of Life
It's Time to...

Meeting Jesus in the Gospel of John
5 Marks of Love
Growing a Rule of Life
It's Time to...

Whether you feel a sense of having too little time for all the demands of life, or whether you feel lonely amidst too much time, God is calling you to connection. God wants us to use our time not just wisely, but sacredly, in order to thrive. No matter what stage of life we are in, God’s invitation is that we be intentional in how we use our time in order to discover the abundance of life God desires for each of us.

Over the next five weeks, we invite you to join us in reflecting on our use of time, focusing especially on how we might take time to stop, pray, work, play and love. Together we will ponder our use of time, asking God to help us weave together the various threads of our lives into a beautiful tapestry in which each part of our life informs and complements the others, and enlivens the whole.

Facilitator’s Guides and other additional supporting materials are available online here >

Br. Geoffrey Tristram proposes that much of our stress and anxiety derives from our pollution of Time. Ordering our relationship to Time can help us to experience the joy of the present moment.Read more >

Workbook

A 16 page easily printable workbook with reflections and space for daily questions.

Br. Geoffrey Tristram identifies time as one of God’s greatest gifts, and one that we have sadly polluted and damaged. It’s time to … redeem and restore our relationship to time, so that we can enjoy our life and glorify God.

“For many people, whether they really know it or not, there is a kind of deep sense that how they perform is directly related to their worth; their value as human beings is dependent on how well they perform in their work.”

Br. Geoffrey Tristram invites us to be freed from this delusion and to know that our worth has nothing to due with our portfolio or our résumé.

30 Comments

Janeton April 10, 2019 at 14:59

Cooking is one, this is a project with the satisfaction of closure as presented in the video, and ritual that we have explored before. Gardening is a favorite for the opposite reason, no closure, endless delight. Editing photos, as I immerse back into time that was playful, adventurous, loving.

This afternoon our Grief Support group met. We were reviewing what has been wonderful in lost relationships. One woman said that her husband had always loved her wholeheartedly. She laughingly interjected that he did not always like her and often she was not being very likable but he did not stop being with her, for her, ready to interpose himself between her and anything that might threaten her. Others in the group agreed that disagreement, supposed slights and other barriers could temporarily get in the way of liking but that loving was the ground of their life together. Some said that having been loved made them safe for the rest of their lives.

It is amazing that God just want us to take time each day just to “be”.
Just to be in HIs presence. Nothing else. He just want us.
Something so simple. So refreshing in the stillness. Yet so many of us
avoid silence like the plague. Why is that? What are we afraid of?
Ourselves?
I like to start out my day sitting in the stillness of early morning just
“being” with God. It feel so right.

Using the resource Seven Sacred Pauses by Wiederkehr, I love to go through my day stopping for prayer at certain times of the day. It helps bring me back to God although I am never really away from Him.

“…a time for every purpose, under Heaven” –The Byrds via Ecclesiastes
May each of us, most especially during this Holy Season, find ways to redeem time and grace each moment with the “righteousness and peace” which is found in, through, and by Jesus Christ alone. Thank you, SSJE, for these postings.

This series will be exciting. I plan to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday as well as give more generously to the poor during Lent. As well as follow a strict whole food diet during Lent. I hope to come to visit the brothers in the very near future. My Priest, Fr Max Wolf ( Rector-All Saints Church and St. George’s Chapel) Rehoboth Beach, DE. highly suggested this to me.

Our church will use the SSJE resource for an online Lenten study and discussion. Our Parish serves a wide geographic area; we need a sense of
community! We pray that the online community will help us refocus and nourish our souls.

We are inviting members of the parish to subscribe and use the series as our common Lenten devotion. I’ve downloaded the pdf of the booklet–but there doesn’t seem to be a worksheet for the days between Ash Wednesday and the first Saturday?

Thank you for writing, Jason. The videos for the first four days, Ash Wednesday through Saturday (February 18 – 21) actually do have questions at the end, although they do not appear in the workbook.

We would recommend you ask people to try to read through the workbook prior to meeting for the first time and that, along with the introductory videos may serve as a sort of overview and orientation for everyone.

My husband who is an associate passed his copy of the Lenten booklet on to me. I am elderly — my 82nd birthday is next week — sick,and tired. I thought that this booklet might give me focus and give me some direction.

My copy arrived in today’s mail. Thank you– for the gift of this offering, and thanks be to God– for your gifts of presence and hospitality, friendship and fellowship. You are a blessing to this pilgrim…. a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path….